University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics

Volume 8 Issue 3 Selected Papers from NWAV 30 Article 8

2002

Past time reference in Belizean Creole.

Shelome Gooden

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This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol8/iss3/8 Past Time Reference in Belizean Creole1

Shelorrie Gooden

1 Introduction '

The question of the relationship between stativity and past marking in Carib­ bean English Creoles (CECs) has been subject to much controversy in the literature. This distinction between stative and non-stative verbs is said to be crucial for analyses of past marking* in Creole languages. The main issue involves the use of anterior (relative past) as well as zero-marking to convey past time reference. There has been disagreement over (a) the semantics and function of zero-marking as well as, the relative past marker; (b) the way these types of marking interact with other the discourse context and the in­ herent lexical aspect (aktionsart) of trie verb. This paper is part of my current work on past time reference in Belizean Creole (BC) in which I examine two main aspects of this debate: first the semantic function of the relative past and its relation to the unmarked verb in BC, and second, the discourse func­ tion of the relative past marker and the unmarked verb. In this paper I focus on the discourse function of the relative past and the unmarked verb. Three types of spontaneous speech data will be examined: Genre A, in which the speaker has total control of the context and the topic; Genre B, in which the discourse context and topic is controlled, and Genre C, in which the discourse topic is.fixed and the context is preset. I propose that a comparison of this sort not only allows for a more controlled quantita­ tive analysis in which frequencies can be tabulated, but there can also be a- precise description of the discourse contexts in which theirelative past and' !the unmarked verb occur. „ "

2 Overview I

2.1 Past Marking and Stativity ||

Bickerton's (1975, 1984) claims that the unmarked'verb always expresses present with statives and past with non-statives and that the relative past (anterior) marker expresses (absolute)* past with statives and past-before-

1 This is part of my work in progress on the past time reference in BC. Thanks to Prof. D Winford, the Changelings group at OSU, and the audience members of NWAV 30 for valuable comments. jj|

U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 8.3 (2002) SHELOME GOODEN past, with non-statives, have" met with recent challenge. Jaganauth (1987), Pollard (1989), and Winford (1993, 2000), for example, argue that unmarked statives often convey past reference in certain discourse contexts. Likewise Gooden (2000 ms) showed that stativity2 is not the sole deciding factor be­ tween an 'absolute past' meaning and a 'past-before-past meaning'. Both stative and non-stative verbs in the BC data examined were used to express past time reference.

2.2 Meaning and Uses

In a relative tense system, such as is employed by Creoles, an event/situation may be-marked as past with the moment of speech (S) or with some other reference point in the past (cf. Cpmrie, 1985). Given that Creoles have a relative tense system, an approach which takes into consideration morpho- syntactic information as well as discourse or contextual information is pref­ erable to one which does not. It is therefore necessary to make a distinction between the meanings expressed by the past tense category: the dominant meanings, which we find represented in its canonical uses, and'the secon­ dary meanings, which.we find represented in the discourse3 (Dahl, 1985).

2.3 Past Marking in BC

According to Winford (2001), BC like other Caribbean English lexified Cre­ oles (CECs) has two categories of tense; RELATIVE PAST1 is one and FUTURE the other. In examining the relative past tense I will focus attention on past' time reference where the situation/event is past in relation to the moment of speech, absolute past, and where it is past in relation to another past event, past-before-past. I will examine the ways in which these meanings are ex­ pressed by the unmarked verb and the relative past marker in discourse. Relative past is expressed in BC by the auxiliary mi and appears prever- bally, e.g. mi gat, mi liv in example (1) below.

2 Through application of 'typical' tests for stativity in which stativity was treated as a feature of the lexical aspect (aktionsart) of the verb (Dowty ms, 1975, Smith 1995, 1997, Lakoff 1966, Mufwene 1983, 1984), it was shown that that some verbs, exam­ ple, stance and relationship verbs, are nonstative, in a Creole context despite their classification as stative by some researchers (cf. Tagliamonte and Poplack 1993, Tagliamonte, 1998). 3 For example, in English 'future time reference' can be expressed by the PRO­ GRESSIVE TENSE; 4 1 use small caps:here to distinguish between the grammatical categories and the semantic notions which are represented in lower case italics. il PAST TIME REFERENCE IN BELIZEAN CREOLE 89

(1) T mi gatplees op ya we mii an hii mi liv he had a place up here where he and I lived (dwelled) (DW) i - • • The prototypical use of this category (dominant function) in Wihford's view (2000) is to distance some situation from the reference point being focused on in the discourse. As shown in (2), unmarked verbs also occur in.BC and can be used to express 'absolute past' temporal reference though they have other functions and express other types of temporal reference as well (cf. Winford 2001). Ij (2) 10si di koakanat di hang dung an den T 0waan wan She saw the coconut hanging down and then she wanted one. (DW) ii 3 Data and Methodology \t

The data described in this paper are spontaneous speech data from two sources, D. Winford's database (DW)'based on fieldwork done in Bermudian Landing and from my own (SG) fieldwork in the same community and in Belize City during July 2000. From the DW database there is one speaker, age 58, and from the SG database there are 3 speakers, ages 16, 58 and 62. All informants reported use of BC and English, with English used only in formal settings such as church services. Elicitation sessions were carried out in informal settings, e.g. informants' homes, to facilitate use of BC. in Genre A (DW), the speaker had complete choice over the topic and context of the discourse. The interviewer/field worker merely facilitated the flow of the conversation with minimal responses or questions to prompt the continuation of speech. In Genre B (SG), the context and topic are con­ trolled. I used a set of fifteen pictures^depicting a story which took place in the past. The pictures were organized in terms of the sequence of occurrence of events in the story. Informants were told that the story was real and de­ picted events that took place in the past. They examined the pictures for 5 minutes and were allowed to ask questions for clarification after which they were asked to retell the story while being tape-recorded. Informants were allowed to look at the pictures while telling the story. In Genre C (SG), the speaker had no control over the topic, A subset of the informants had diffi­ culty retelling the picture-based story; these were typically older informants who had little or no formal education. In this case a discourse topic was cho- :i •i n 5 The data is transcribed in broad phonemic transcription. 90 SHELOME GOODEN

sen for discussion through direct questions about past events surrounding the 'days of the ferry'.6

4 Past Time Reference Interpretation

4.1 The Tense Locus

Chung and Timbcrlake (1985) describe tense as a directional temporal di­ mension, having a privileged point or interval of time called the tense locus. Tense therefore locates an event in time by comparing the position of the (event) frame with respect to the tense locus, which can be any point along the time dimension. Here I use the term tense locus (TL) to designate the point in time in relation to which an event/state is perceived as past. In a relative tense system the TL is some point in time given by the context, which may or may not be the moment of speech (S). An event is located at, before or after the TL. Gooden (2000 ms) showed that identifying the tense locus in the discourse is not always straightforward. It is not the case that it is always established by the time reference of another verb in the same or adjacent sentence.7 It is also not'the case, as illustrated in (3), that the refer­ ence verb/clause has to precede (syntactically) the affected verb/clause.

(3) A: Di mi doro na oso esde, mi bradi gi mi moni 'When I arrived home yesterday, my brother gave me money* B: Baka di a dringi a dresi a koso wan heri yuru 'After he drank the medicine he coughed for a whole hour' (Winford 2000)

Winford explains this as a case in which the speaker regards both the events as past relative to S and thus sees no need to distance one from the other. Interpretation of time reference is therefore based on the nature of the rela­ tionship between the tense locus and the event/state. So the event/state can

6 Before roads to Belize City were constructed, people commuted by river using first canoes (dori) then a ferry. 7 This is suggested in Tagliamonte and Poplack's (1993) analysis in which verbs were coded for temporal reference based on one of five potential relationships with the preceding 'reference verb'; posterior, anterior, coincidence, repetition, and reorienta­ tion. For example, verbs which occurred in sequential order with Event 1 ordered before Event 2 were coded as posterior, e.g. When i sen, the vessel 'round her ruder touch2 the bar (Tagliamonte and Poplack 1993:179) PAST TIME REFERENCE IN BELIZEAN CREOLE 91

be anterior to, the reference point, simultaneous with it, or posterior to it (cf. Chung and Timberlake 1985:203 on event frame). Ii 4.2 The Interpretation of Past/Meaning of Past

When the TL coincides with Sethis gives-an absolute past temporal refer­ ence (Comrie 1985:65). The diagram in (4) below is a temporal schema for 'absolute past' interpretation. The line represents time; the situation with an 'absolute past' time reference is therefore located prior to S where the TL is equal to S. The example in (5) illustrates.

(4) Schema: I Situation/Event TL=S-I 1.—-time-^ > M (5) A: Yu memba da kriezi haus de Do you remember that crazy yuustu ha da Barrack Road de? house (asylum) they used to ;i have at Barracks Road there? B: Wich kriezi haus? Dar Bar­ Which crazy house (asylum)? racks? J At Barracks? A da Barracks At Barracks B yes yes A Unu yuustu go rown de an plie Did you (pi) used to go around there and play and an faas wid de kriezi piipl de? interfere with (tease/make fun of) the crazy people? B: No wi doz go rown de, wi mi No, (but) we used to go ha! wan fren mi gaan2 •[ around there, we had a friend iin de, r stepfaada mi chap Qp^ who went in there, her step­ t ma rait an di gial gaan kriezi, father chopped up her mother we doz go de go luk fi shi, right and the girl went crazy, siem wi go luk fu |j we usually go and visit her i just like we go searching for meri go rown..mi deh striet (a) merry-go-round...(that) da Barracks,, '*" was straight (right) at Bar­ racks.

Observations: The statives (ha 1 and deh 4) and the non-stative (gaan 2) refer to absolute past situations as in the preceding examples. The impli- cature is that the situations being referred to by the verbs no longer have cur- 92 S HELOME GOODEN rent relevance. The non-stative chap-op% expresses past-before-past mean­ ing. The tense locus is situated in the past and the situation in question is located prior to it (cf. Comrie 1985, Dahl 1985). As shown in (6), the situa­ tion with a 'past-before-past' temporal.reference (I) is located prior to an­ other situation which establishes the reference point (2), and which is itself in the past and hence located after S. The parenthesis around the equal sigh indicates that the TL may be some other reference point in-the past, estab­ lished by the discourse context.

(6) Schema: I Situation, Situation; (=) TL—S--I time- >

Summary: The relative past marker and the unmarked verb are both used to locate a situation prior to S. Where the reference point is the moment of speech, we have an 'absolute past' temporal reference. Where the reference point is a past situation and another situation precedes it temporally, we have 'past-before-past' temporal reference. One remaining issue is what deter­ mines the choice of mi in some cases and the unmarked verb in others. We look at the discourse context below in an effort to find out why this is so.

5 The Discourse Function

5.1 Background

As noted above, examining the use of the relative past marker and the un­ marked verb in discourse is important for unearthing more information on the breadth of their uses. In fact a number of researchers have identified dif­ ferences in the uses of the relative past marker and the unmarked verb in discourse (Pollard 1989, Youssef and James 1999, Winford 2001, among others). Pollard, for example, claims that in Jamaican Creole, unmarked verbs typically present foreground information while the relative past marker usually presents background information. Youssef and James (1999) report similar functions for the unmarked verb (non-remoteness interpretation) and the relative past marker (remoteness interpretation) in Tobagonian Creole. Applying quantitative analyses, Tagliamonte (1998) shows that in narratives in early St. Kitts Creole 'bin' occurs most frequently in backgrounded in­ formation.

8 Note that the distinction here could be one of telicity. While gaan is non-stative it is also atelic whereas chap-op, also non-stative, is telic. PAST TIME REFERENCE IN BELIZEAN CREOLE 93 i

Given these observations, we might reasonably expect to find similar patterns in the BC narratives9 shown below. Background information gives a backdrop to the main storyline; explanatory material necessary for inter­ preting the events of the story e.g. time, place, characters (Schiffrin 1981; Wallace 1982, cited in Pollard 1989) (orientation) and may also indicate the value of events in the narrative (evaluation). Foreground information on the other hand, advances the storyline or indicates the main points of the story (complicating action). The narratives are divided in sections along these lines, with the unmarked verbs indicated by 0 and verbs and copulas with mi in boldface for ease of reference.

5.2 The Data

5.2.1 Genre A: Speaker controlled context and topic

In this extract the speaker describes*apparent sibling rivalry, which resulted in one child living outside the home with someone else. i (5) Wen ai 0 komuhuom ai When I came home I saw Comp. 0sij we dah mi di ^ (perceived) what the Action prablem3 wid S. an i tuu° problem was with S and breda dem, 1 his two brothers. 5 dah laik de neva 3 It was as if they never Eval. laik a, K and L, ' liked him, K and L, an ai 0 si4 it ah we ai had an I saw it an what I Comp. waz tu du ai had waz tu had to do I had to move Action 10 muuv fran mai Ma wid S.[' I from my Ma with S but wen ai 0 muuv5fran . but when I moved from mai Ma wid S ai 0 my Ma with SI moved muuv6 owt ai 0 kom7ya.fj out, I came here, Ai mi liv8 op iina waa I lived in an upstairs Em- 15 opstiez bifo ai 0 muuv, (buitding) before I bed.Ori ya moved here ent. an S kudn stie wid mi ,1 and S couldn 't stay with Eval. kaaz i mi tuu smaal ;.' me because there were ruumH(, so ai 0JefLi S two small rooms so I left 20 dah Mis S. 1 5 at Miss S. y I use narrative here in a broad sense to cover a range of genres including stories, reports, and plans, among others (cf. Ochs 1997). 94 SHELOME GOODEN

Observations: In the clause 'a.i.mi liv op iina wa opstiez bifo ai muuv ya', the non-stative *liv' which is marked by mi expresses 'past-before-past' in­ terpretation. The temporal conjunction, 'bifo' is being used-by the speaker to set the events of living in an upstairs building (V8-/1V) before the event of moving (V9-muuv). All the unmarked verbs refer to foreground information, the marked verb (8) and copulas (3 and 10) describe information that can be regarded as background information setting the scene for the speakers de­ scription of the problem. This pattern is also observed in Genre B as is shown below.

5.2.2 Genre B: Controlled topic and context

This extract describes the activities of a disobedient child and the conse­ quences of his disobedience.

(8) Billy mi di plie baal kaa .. Billy was playing ball because... Billy mi de autsaid a hi haus Billy was outside of his house 0di plie baal an sietaim T 0di playing ball and at the same time plie baal i son mi hat a hi mi... he was playing ball the sun was a hi mi di tink bowt go da hot and he was... and he was thin biich fi go swim king about going to the beach to so den Billy 0gaan iinsaid ga swim. aks i ma if hi ku go swim. Wei So then Billy went inside to ask his mother if he could go to swim. i ma 0se dat ok.. J ku go swim Well his mother said that ok...he bot siemtaim hi 0di tink bowt could go to swim but at the same fi go klaim mango chrii tu. So time he was thinking about going i ma 0tel a hi ku go swim bot to climb mango trees too. So his hi kyaa go klaim i mango chrii mother told him he could go to kaa i dienjaros an i ku get hert. swim but he could not go to climb So den Billy 0gaan pan.i bi­ mango trees because it is danger­ ich an Billy 0staat ous and he could get hurt. So then Billy went on the beach and Billy started tu plie wen hi de pan di biich, to play when he was on the beach, nau hi 0miit fi hi fren Derrick now he met his friend Derrick and an hi an Derrick 0staat to plie he and Derrick started to play krikit pan di biich. Afta dat cricket on the beach. After that Billy 0get tyad a plie krikit so Billy got tired of playing cricket so hi 0tel Derrick 'let's go bai di he told 'let's go to the mango tree mango chrii go pik so nais to pick some nice mangoes because PAST TIME REFERENCE IN BELIZEAN CREOLE 95

mango kaa de luk raip rait, nau they look ripe right now and juicy'. ajuusi' V So then the sun was going down. So den di son mi di go iin. Anyway he was not paying atten­ Eniwie hi no di studi dat. Hi tion to that. He went to the mango 0gaan bai di mango chrii. I tree. He stood up in front of it and 0stanop front a it a i 0tink i he thought, he was remembering 0di rimemba hau i ma 0tel a i how his mother told him he could ku go swim bot kip awie tram go to swim but to keep away from di mango chrii. Hi no di studi the mango tree. He was not paying dat hi di 0tink bowt hau juusi attention to that he was thinking di mango an hau nais.... iiwa about how juicy the mango (would ties....so ga ahed an hi 0gaan be) and how nice....it would an hi taste....so he went ahead and he went and he started to pick man­ 0staat tu pik dung mango fi goes for himself and his fried Der­ hi an i fren Derick. I 0staat tu rick. He started to pick mangoes pik dung mango nau. Derrick now. Derrick started to eat and then he was swinging on the tree 0staat to iit..An den..hi 0di and he went and he climbed the swing pan di mango chrii nau i tree acting up himself showing 0di chrai ek iself di shuo Der- Derrick how he could swing on the rick hau hi ku swing pa chrii. tree. So now after he swung on the So nau afta hi 0swing pan tree he went and he climbed the chrii.... i 0gaan an i 0klaim tree and evening was coming. He di chrii an iivin mi di kom iin. was paying no attention to that. He Hi no di studi dat. Hi jus 0di was just shouting to Derrick and showtop Derrick an 0tel Der­ told Derrick how he was on the rick hau hi deh pan di mango mango tree and he could do this chrii an hi kud du dis a dat pan and he could do that on the mango di mango chrii. Nau i 0gaan tree. Now he went and he fell and an i 0 d r a p an i he burst..scraped up his knee and 0bos...skriepop i nii an i he burst his toe and then after that 0bus i tuo an den afta dat i he remembered his mother told Orimemba i ma 0tel a yuS him 'you could swim but keep 'I away from the mango tree because kud swim bot kip awie fram di, it is dangerous. So now he went mango chrii bikaa i dienjaros.- home and he started to cry and he So nau i 0gaan huom an i H told his mother what happened, he 0staat tu krai an i 0tel i maij told his mother how he was we 0hapen. I 0tel i ma hauls climbing the mango tree and he hi mi di klaim di mango chrii 1 96 SHELOME GOODEN

an hi Oskriep hi nil a 0bos i scraped his knee and and burst his tuo. So i ma 0huol i hed an i toe. So his mother held her head ma 0staat tu baal an i ma and his mother started to bawl and 0tel a. 'Yu rimemba a 0tel yu his mother told him. ' Do you re­ no go pa da mango chrii. member I told you not to go on that Rimemba a 0tel yu i dien- mango tree. Remember I told you it is dangerous'. He never listened so jaros'. Hi neva 01isn so aal hi all he could do was cry now. So his ku du da krai nau. So i ma mother told him well you deserve it 0tel a 'wel...yu diserv it sins since you went on the mango tree yu 0gaan pan di mango chrii and I sent you to swim..you are not an a sen yu fi 0 g a a n, to do any of them. You will not swim...yu no going a non a swim again....you have learnt your dem.. Yu no, no o swim lesson. agen..yu laan yu lesn'.

Observations: All of the unmarked verbs in this extract mark foreground information. Following the pattern observed for other CECs, the seven in­ stances where mi is used.in the text (lines 1-5, 25, 45) all mark background information. However, a different pattern is seen in Genre C.

5.2.3 Genre C: Controlled topic

In the extract below, the conversion is between myself and a 58-year-old farmer about the ferry that used to be operated in the village more than 15 years prior to our conversation (lines 16-18).

(9) SG: So yu eva go dung de pan i So did you ever go down there feri?.Michel se de ...di feri yuustu on the ferry? Michel said go kraas, dung bai Misa Paul. they...the ferry used to go across, down by Mr. Paul. RJ: Yes a yuustu werk de tu, werk RJ: Yes I used to work there too, 5 an di feri tu work on the ferry too. SG: Hau dat werk? SG: How does that work? RJ: Wei., yu kud tek a luk...a hav RJ: Well... you could take a wan uol wan rait ya.... Wa gai nie look..A have an old one right here.... A guy called Alan Silasi Alan Silasi an hi...wan kooli 10 and he...a kooli gai an hi jraa..di feri i tel mi se iz guy and he drew..the ferry and laik dis [looking at painting on the he told me that it is like this wall] yes, iz di onli ting fi rimemba [looking at painting on the wall] PAST TIME REFERENCE IN BELIZEAN CREOLE 97

hi an dis da kup! yiaaz nau. Dis yes, it is the 15 abaut nier fiftiin.. muor dan dat only thing to remember him (by) bikaaz feri diez don lang taim. and this is a couple years now. la This is about, nearly 15...more than that because ferry days are long gone. SG: So wen di piipl kom yaso we SG: So when the people come yu du?_[pointing at painting], right here, what do you do ? 20 [pointing at painting] RJ: ..so aal a de haus ya da weh mi RJ: .so all of these houses right de uova riva an den dis mihagny here that were across the river stump de a waata said ' an then this mahagony stump is on river bank, weh paa yu 0tel mi yu mi di bied where you told that you were 25 an waa lagwud stump de rait dung bathing and a logwood stump is de..iida dis wan ar dis wan' »! right down here....either.this one or that one [pointing at picture] An dis a 0di [pointing at picture] And this is feri, dis a 0di tuu tong, den dis*a the ferry, these are the 2 tongs 30 0di waiya, di kieblop den...dat'da i then this is a wire being cabled Iii haus op da tap pan a. up then that is the little roof on top of it. Den yu a tun a so..laik tuu baaj yu Then you turn it so like 2 35 no. barges you know. SG: ok SG: ok RJ: ..an den yu tiin an den..an yii si RJ: ..and then you turn and hau di waiya string kraas wei di!' then... and you see how the wire riva? An a rait so i mi stie baL is strung across the river? And kuzn..ongkl Paul de..ahaa..rait bai that is exactly how it.was beside 40 di waata said. Yu going dung yuj, coustn..uncle Paul there, ahaa supuos fi si dis..waa big aiyan bai right at the river bank. (If) you kuzn Jean de; "g are going down you are sup- posedtosee this...a big iron beside cousin Jean there. SG: Oh! mi siit an a wanda a SG: Oh! / saw it an I was 45 wah * wondering what it was. RJ: Aah yes yes! ..ahaa..i kyari di, RJ: Aah yes yes! ..ahaa..it car­ kiebl ried (supported) the cable SG: So de put di kyaahdem pan de SG: So they put the cars on there 50 ar wa or what..? RJ: Yes, yes.... but den, di chuck, • RJ: Yes, yes.... but then the 98 SHELOME GOODEN

di kyaa dem go ya, chuk, di kyaa truck, the cars go here, truck, the dem go op ya, chuk an aal, chuk cars go up here, trucks and eve­ but nat rything but not bus, no bus chuk, a& kaa aha bi- buses, no buses trucks and cars 55 kaaz if a mi feri diez de& big ik- aha because if it were ferry days wjpment di kom uova ya kudn those big equipment that are kom pan da feri coming over here (now) could not come on that ferry SG: Tuu hevy? SG: Too heavy? RJ: De tuu hevy ahaa karek RJ: They are too heavy, ahaa 60 correct SG: So piipl go pan de SG: So people go on there RJ: Yes afta wen...i du so an kyari RJ: Yes after when...I do this ova di chuk an den di piipl de kum and bring over the truck and owt. Di piipl den kunrowt then the people come out. The £,- an waak dung di sie kut we yu go people come out and weh yu bied..wen yu go dung tu walk down the same path where.you go to bathe... when waata said ya. you go down to the riverside here SG: A rait ya mi bied, rait de SG: It is right here that I bathe, right there RJ: Yes, yes! Yes yu si, yu si hau RJ: Yes, yes! Yes you see, you 70 ting werk owt...dis a di lagwud see how things work out! ...this stump we de rait dung de nau.. is a logwood stump that is right down there now no chruu....den dis a 0 wa kau pen isn't true. then this is cow pen we mi uova de op paa di Chaini de that was over there up where the 75 Chinese people live right now. A liv rait nau. Wa big big kau pen fi Misa Russell, di sie gai cow pen for Mr. Russell, the we gat di bus de, Misa Russell we same guy who has the buses Mr. Russell who is called Tuts...ahaa nie Tuts...ahaa a fi hi 80 it is his pa mi hav waa paascha uova di father who had a pasture across riva so dis a 0 i kau pen, dj bwai the river so this is his cow pen. jraa di kaupen tu..si di The boy drew the cow pen too..see the haus iin di mhmm..si wa neks Iii house in the mhmm..see an­ haus we mi de uova de tu. Den dis other little house that was over 85 a wa kanuu we de mi gat saida there too. Then this is a canoe PAST TIME REFERENCE IN BELIZEAN CREOLE 99

dis Di bwai we _ko rait that they had iinya an jraa...rait owt hau di Ber- beside this...The boy...came right mudian Landing feri mi ..laik in here an drew...drew what the Bermudian Landing ferry was like. hau i.mi stie. Di yunga jenarieshan The younger generation they do de no nuo wat iz a feri • not know what a ferry is. [SG]

Observations: In lines 29-31 all the copulas are zero-marked and the mean­ ing is present as the speaker is,looking at a picture of the ferry, which is painted-on the wall. If we compare this to clause in lines 74-76, we see that where as the physical descriptions have present tense interpretation, the things being described, e.g. theinlocation, no longer have current relevance, so the speaker distances them from S with the use of-mi ('absolute past* in­ terpretation). The same is true for the clause in line 81, Mr Russell's father no longer has a cow pen across the river (absolute.past) but the picture of it is still on the wall (present): \ The speaker also gives background information to orientate the listener as to which Russell is being referred to lines 77-79. Notice however, that it is the foreground information, of the ownership of the cow pen, which is marked by mi and the background information, which is unmarked. This seems to go against Pollard's and other researchers claims, however, if we bear in mind that from the speaker's viewpoint it> is the foreground informa­ tion that no longer has current relevance and must necessarily be distanced from S, then we can begin to understand the choice of mi in this case. Mi is used to the indicate remoteness of the situation being described whereas zero indicates the relevance of the situation to speech time. The speaker knows it is no longer the days of the ferry (line 16-18) and in fact offers an evaluation of what would have happened if that were the case lines 55-58. As shown in (10),'another speaker MY (female, 62) talking about the days of the ferry uses the unmarked verb to mark foreground information. £1 (10) SG: So yu on di chruk an di * So you are on the truck and the chruk go on di feri? tB truck goes on the ferry? MY: ahaa. Bot yu 0hav laim •' ahaa. But you had times when wen di chruk 0kom ova' the truck came over when it was wen i draL.an i miebi kud dry (season)...and maybe it kyari yu to St.Paal, ahm l could take you to St.Paul's Rancho Delorez, Flowas '= (Bank) ahm Rancho Delorez, Bank, but wen i 0 rien i Flowers Bank, but when it kyaan du it bikaaz wi no 0 rained it could not do it because 100 SHELOME GOODEN

hav aal weda ruod laik now we did not have all weather yu noh roads like now, you know.....

6 Summary and Discussion

As shown, both the relative past marker and the unmarked verb can be used to present foreground and background information in discourse. Whereas this might suggest that there is variation, the more important question is what governs the speakers' choice of past marking. The observations here suggest that the speaker's assessment of the. situation (viewpoint) is relevant for the assignment of ground and consequently use of the relative past marker or the unmarked verb. Problematic cases remain, e.g. lines 25-26 'weh paa yu 0tel mi yu mi di bied' where you told me you were bathing. This is background information so that the listener can locate the tree stump. Both verbs indicate absolute past time reference yet one is marked, the other is unmarked:' Addi­ tional examination of.spontaneous-speech data coupled with more detailed discourse analysis will only enhance our understanding of past-time refer­ ence in Creole languages.

References

Bickerton, Derek. 1984. The Roots of Language. Ann Arbor. Karoma Press. Chung, Sandra and A. Timberlake. 1985. Tense Mood and Apsect. In Timothy Shopen (ed), Language Typology and Syntactic Description Vol.3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.. Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dahl, Osten. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. New York / Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Dowty, David. 1975. The Stative and the Progressive and Other Essence/Accident Contrasts. Linguistic Inquiry Vol. 5 no. 4 pgs. 579-588. Dowty, David, ms. Aspect and Aktionsart. The Ohio State University, pgs. 1-35. Gooden, Shelome. 2000 ms. Stativity and Past Marking in Belizean Creole. Paper presented at the Society for Caribbean Linguistics 13"' Biennial Conference, Mona, Jamaica. Ochs, Elinor. 1997. Narrative. In Teun Van Dijk (ed.). Discourse as Structure and Process. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary .Introduction Volume 1. London: SAGE Publications. Pollard, Velma. 1989. The Particle en in Jamaican Creole: A Discourse-Related Ac­ count. English World Wide 10:1 55-68 Schiffrin, Deborah. 1981. Tense in Narrative. Language. 57:1 45-62. Smith, Carlotta. 1995, 1997. The Parameter of Aspect. Boston: Kluwer. npa-ajvjs-otifo-Huiji&uapooSs OIZefrHOsnqtu'MOD anuaAVIWNZm I[BH Xaixo III

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